Capcom to give titles more dev time, says Street Fighter V 'needed more polish'

Racing to the finish line has been their MO for some time now, and it's really hurt their branding overall.

They need to take all the time they can. While Miyamoto's quote "a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is bad forever" isn't entirely true anymore with patching and online updates, a rushed game can often do nigh irreparable damage to the reputation of that game, the brand, and the company via negative first impressions and word of mouth.
 
They didn't plan an arcade mode. They thought the cinematic story mode and character stories would be enough.

Who the heck doesn't plan for an arcade mode in a fighting game? Did they one day forget that they made and released fighting games on consoles?

Friggin' SFA3's arcade mode was a bloody story mode.
 
Who the heck doesn't plan for an arcade mode in a fighting game? Did they one day forget that they made and released fighting games on consoles?

Friggin' SFA3's arcade mode was a bloody story mode.

They thought that training mode CPU against the computer was enough. They were treating SFV as an online service infrastructure, and figured that online game modes would be enough given the shift in focus to esports and online only multiplayer games like MOBAS, Destiny, and Overwatch. This was a mistake for Capcom, and one that was hard learned.
 
Still, 3 of the issues I mentioned above are simple toggle options, which have yet to be implemented almost 3 months after launch, despite SFIV having those features already.

You're right, which means... there's probably something even more urgent in their pipeline.
 
Now that they have realized they released a half-assed game, how long before they sell it at a price that reflects that fact?
 
The game has a freakin 8 frame input delay & plays like absolute trash. The game feels like you are playing underwater even offline. You think it needed more time in the oven?
 
They should've pushed for an arcade SFV release in Feb to get it out in time for the competitive scene and evo. Then done a more fully featured home release later in the year.
 
As much as I enjoy playing it, SFV needs more than polish.

The game has a freakin 8 frame input delay & plays like absolute trash. The game feels like you are playing underwater even offline. You think it needed more time in the oven?

8 frames sucks but plays like trash? Oh nvm it's you.
 
How long does it take for polish to get here on foot from Poland and deliver basic features like customizable controls on pc, standard training mode options, working online etc?
It's been months and I fear someone threw that poor polish under the bus.
 
According to GAF the online in SF5 has apparently never worked at all. I have not had issues with it past day 1 so I guess I'm magic.

I'm sure it works now

But it definitely didn't launch week. And when there was no content for offline play what was I supposed to do?

I wasn't getting matches and everyone said "so play survival then" but I would get to the 20th + match and get disconnected and lose progress, it was frustrating

I left and haven't gone back. You get one first impression, I'm literally just waiting on some sp content
 
I love how they say the game had these issues.... like any of them has been fixed, lol.

I mean, SFV is worth it, its core gameplay is simply too good, second to none in my book. But man, the game is garbage outside the core gameplay. And no, Arcade and Story Mode will not change that.
 
Who the heck doesn't plan for an arcade mode in a fighting game? Did they one day forget that they made and released fighting games on consoles?

Friggin' SFA3's arcade mode was a bloody story mode.

Like GuardianE says, they have a different business model with SF5 than their previous fighting games. Their mistake was in presuming people would be on board with it just like that.
It's an Early Access game but they didn't label it thusly, and it's using a similar business model to KI and other F2P fighting games like Tekken Revolution but they didn't price it as such.


That doesn't answer it. On those occasions they blamed lack of quality on outsourcing. If their next major titles are still lacking in quality, then they'll have no excuse left..

Now that they have realized they released a half-assed game, how long before they sell it at a price that reflects that fact?

They're still adding content to the game. They're not dropping the price. SF5 is not a rushed game that will remain meagre in content forever. It's an Early Access game without being labeled as such.
 
Going with the Deep Down approach rather than the SFV approach huh?

My guess is that they have a lot of stuff done for SFV, and are just holding it back for the June release. They'll release a character this month, maybe a stage, but not much more.

This allows them to make June's update a much bigger deal and hopefully draw in the people that held off. The people in love with the game are still playing it.
 
I really wonder if Overwatch will tace similar backlash for lack of a singleplayer mode outside of bots.

That's the type of game it is though. It will probably catch some flack. When TF2 came to consoles it came with the orange box so there were single player games to play.
 
decades of game dev and they realize its best to give games polish

Exactly. Basically, they're constantly trying to push consumers as far as they can (like most businesses) and they faced the appropriate backlash. Still disgusting the state that some companies release their games. Imagine buying a DVD or bluray that needed a patch to play properly. The games industry seems to be somewhat unique when it comes to things like this.
 
Capcom learning from things?

lmao. I love Capcom. But last gen and now this gen they are no stranger to doing some fuckshit and going "oh we'll do better next time brehs".

This is Capcom. They will continue to do this and you silly ass gamers will eat that shit up why? "I mean...they made God Hand tho"

Basically the Michael Jackson thought process. Highlighting the incredible shit done to mask the fact that this aspect is a fuck up.
This isn't them telling fans "servers will be better next time, sorry brehs", this is them telling investors that they're modifying their release strategy for the near future. I'm assuming that it is illegal to lie to investors in Japan, as it is in the U.S.
 
They had somewhat noble idea of getting it out for fighting tournaments but they should really have kept an eye on casual players.
This is a misconception. The game is barebones and broken for everybody, not just casuals. I play online and online is awful. Not the netcode, but how the different modes work, both technically and from a design point of view.

Only good thing about the game is the fighting (and the music, best SF OST ever, which is saying something).
 
While I respect the fact they admitted it to investors, its pretty damn obvious they had plan to rush it to market from the get go.

One thing I keep harping on about in these threads is how Capcom changes its business plan nearly every few quarters. Investors might not be keeping score, but it was only 6 or so months ago Capcom was stating that every title would be made within a 2.5 year timeframe.

The way it was phrased in the investor call sounds like unfortunate circumstances but this is Capcoms own design.

Its pretty clear that upper management are content telling investors whatever they feel they want to hear, changing direction of the company on a dime.
 
While I respect the fact they admitted it to investors, its pretty damn obvious they had plan to rush it to market from the get go.

One thing I keep harping on about in these threads is how Capcom changes its business plan nearly every few quarters. Investors might not be keeping score, but it was only 6 or so months ago Capcom was stating that every title would be made within a 2 year timeframe.

The way it was phrased in the investor call sounds like unfortunate circumstances but this is Capcom own design.

Its pretty clear that upper management are content telling investors whatever they feel they want to hear, changing direction of the company on a dime.

It's not two years as so much as 2-3 years. With probably 2.5 years on average, as that was their plan for DmC sequels. But it's not a new thing. It's been their plan for years. They started outsourcing partly for that reason, as they same similar things in reaction to changing outsourcing for developing sequels while doing new IPs in-house, then again when they scaled back outsourcing post-RE6 and DmC.
 
As a player who is really only interested in competition offline and on, I don't feel slighted in the least by spending $60 for a relatively incomplete game at launch. I have already gotten my money's worth in playtime and experiences alone.

However, I totally understand where players who expect more out of a $60 title are coming from. What's more, I think Capcom really underestimated how important drawing in the players who want single player modes are and it's now seriously affecting their bottom line. Your hardcore/competitive players will stick around for the updates and the service-based content, but your players who are less serious expect a certain kind of single player experience from a major fighting game title and they did not get it. I think there's some overlap and opportunities for converting new/less serious players into hardcore players through single player content, robust tutorials, and Capcom failed to capitalize on that as well.

If they don't learn from this, I think Capcom is gonna be done soon. I hope that SFV can recover because it's a fantastic game that deserves a place among other huge competitive titles. To start, I would reduce the price of the game to bring it in line with what the public understands/expects from it. This may help more than Capcom realizes. If they can get back some trust by being forthcoming about their mistakes, they can possibly recoup with service-based content later on down the road. But what's a fair price? $40? $30?
 
The company can acknowledge it, but some super fans still want to insist SFV didn't need to cater to filthy casuals also.

SFV definitely could have benefitted from a later release date. Now SFV is a great game at its core, but it is fighting against its rough launch incomplete label, and hoping interest doesn't wane before more content is added.
 
I remember some people here saying they would easily surpass SFIV sales and that they would have 2 million plus at launch night alone.

At least they learned from their mistake. Heres hoping the next game is for all consoles as well. I was playing Street Fighter before there even was a Sony or Microsoft in the games industry.

Who said this? It surpassing SFIV in sales was pretty much impossible even if they had tons of content due to the climate in which SFIV was released.
 
It's not a new thing. It's been their plan for years. They started outsourcing partly for that reason, as they same similar things in reaction to changing outsourcing for developing sequels while doing new IPs in-house, then again when they scaled back outsourcing post-RE6 and DmC.

Yeah. But my point is they keep saying things like this and then turning around when they fail and saying "aww shucks, We didnt realise that would happen"

They damn well know what the conseqenses are for these strategies. They only see a problem when they fail miserably.
 
They thought that training mode CPU against the computer was enough. They were treating SFV as an online service infrastructure, and figured that online game modes would be enough given the shift in focus to esports and online only multiplayer games like MOBAS, Destiny, and Overwatch. This was a mistake for Capcom, and one that was hard learned.
At least those games let you play with your friends.

SFV launched without multiplayer fight lobbies. That's like releasing a shooter without a party system.
 
At least those games let you play with your friends.

SFV launched without multiplayer fight lobbies. That's like releasing a shooter without a party system.

I'm not justifying it, though I do think that the distinction lies in the inherent one on one nature of fighting games. I'm just saying this felt like a misguided attempt to appeal to that casual competitive player base.
 
Yeah. But my point is they keep saying things like this and then turning around when they fail and saying "aww shucks, We didnt realise that would happen"

They damn well know what the conseqenses are for these strategies. They only see a problem when they fail miserably.

That's absolutely true. Overseas outsourcing was never actually a problem in terms of product quality outside of maybe Bionic Commando and Dark Void.

But their plans to reduce development time to 2-3 years from 3-4 isn't something new.
 
You've been in business for over 30 years, Capcom. How is this lesson not ingrained in your dev culture?

this, they know they "fucked up" with light content but are just saying this to try to get some sympathy , they aren't a rookie studio

that being said, I rented SF5 and had a decent time with it, when more content comes out I'll pick up a copy down the road.
 
According to GAF the online in SF5 has apparently never worked at all. I have not had issues with it past day 1 so I guess I'm magic.

I wish I had your magic. I officially put SFV down after the Guile patch because I ran out of patience for the schitzophrenic matchmaking and the absurd prevalence of "5-bar" lagfests. The one-sided netcode nonsense wasn't particularly endearing either.
 
Nah, I'm not down for waiting FFXV time.

DMC4 was 8 years ago.

Mega Man 10 was 6 years ago.

SFV was 8 years after IV which was 10 years after Third Strike.

MVC3 was 11 years after MVC2.

Don't even get me started on Darkstalkers, Power Stone, Rival Schools, Mega Man Legends, Ghouls and Ghosts, Dino Crisis, Viewtiful Joe, or the thousands of other IPs they've neglected since the 2000s.

For anything not named Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, or Devil May Cry (and even that's starting to slip), Capcom is worse than FFXV time. Having games that take a long time to develop is no different from now where they barely do anything aside from their safe franchises, and it'll probably result in a better output. In any case XV is really an extreme example and not the kind of thing people refer to when they say "long development time".
 
While I respect the fact they admitted it to investors, its pretty damn obvious they had plan to rush it to market from the get go.

One thing I keep harping on about in these threads is how Capcom changes its business plan nearly every few quarters. Investors might not be keeping score, but it was only 6 or so months ago Capcom was stating that every title would be made within a 2.5 year timeframe.

The way it was phrased in the investor call sounds like unfortunate circumstances but this is Capcoms own design.

Its pretty clear that upper management are content telling investors whatever they feel they want to hear, changing direction of the company on a dime.
A change of direction is Konami. This is tweaking their release timeline.
 
As a player who is really only interested in competition offline and on, I don't feel slighted in the least by spending $60 for a relatively incomplete game at launch. I have already gotten my money's worth in playtime and experiences alone.

However, I totally understand where players who expect more out of a $60 title are coming from. What's more, I think Capcom really underestimated how important drawing in the players who want single player modes are and it's now seriously affecting their bottom line. Your hardcore/competitive players will stick around for the updates and the service-based content, but your players who are less serious expect a certain kind of single player experience from a major fighting game title and they did not get it. I think there's some overlap and opportunities for converting new/less serious players into hardcore players through single player content, robust tutorials, and Capcom failed to capitalize on that as well.

If they don't learn from this, I think Capcom is gonna be done soon. I hope that SFV can recover because it's a fantastic game that deserves a place among other huge competitive titles. To start, I would reduce the price of the game to bring it in line with what the public understands/expects from it. This may help more than Capcom realizes. If they can get back some trust by being forthcoming about their mistakes, they can possibly recoup with service-based content later on down the road. But what's a fair price? $40? $30?

The fair price is $60 Early Access. Once you say to consumers you're getting an early access product, expectations change. You don't get as many sales from the outset but you sell with the caveat that the game isn't finished. Nobody was shitting on Codemasters for the problems in Dirt Rally last year because, as an Early Access release you knew fixes were coming, content was coming. The boxed game that launched this year was the finished product. It reviewed well, it sold well and as a backer I'm glad my money took it from one car and course and a fuck-ton of bugs to the finished game people are playing today.

SFV should have launched Early Access on Steam and PlayStation Store with the finished game to launch at retail in June/July. You'd get the raw components out to the hardcore fans, ready for the tourneys, keeping them happy and then the casual crowd can jump in to a mature, complete product a few months later and their positive word of mouth and the tourneys will carry the product forward.

What you can't do is ship a beta to retail and wonder why it tanked. No amount of price adjustment can overcome that.
 
DMC4 was 8 years ago.

Mega Man 10 was 6 years ago.

SFV was 8 years after IV which was 10 years after Third Strike.

MVC3 was 11 years after MVC2.

Don't even get me started on Darkstalkers, Power Stone, Rival Schools, Mega Man Legends, Ghouls and Ghosts, or the thousands of other IPs they've neglected since the 2000s.

Capcom is worse than FFXV time.

DMC4 - 2008, DmC - 2013, DmC DE & DMC4SE - 2015
SF4 - 2009, SSF4 - 2010 , SSF4AE - 2011, USF4 - 2014, SFV - 2016

You exaggerate a bit.

Now DMC5 is going to get delayed.

Action game of the forever
 
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